Power Laws, Scaling, and Fractals in the Most Lethal International and Civil Wars

Abstract

The most lethal international and civil wars in modern history (1816-present) have caused tens of millions of fatalities (∼10^7) measured in battle deaths alone. The even more catastrophic loss of human life in terms of total casualties and war-related civilian deaths caused by these interstate and domestic conflicts combined during the past two centuries has been even greater (perhaps ∼10^8, in the hundreds of millions range). In spite of their theoretical and policy significance (Clemens and Singer 2000), an in-depth analysis of the set of highest-magnitude international and civil wars has never been conducted, although several decades have passed since the Correlates of War Project has been reporting extensive systematic data and numerous findings on other types of wars (Singer and Small 1972; Small and Singer 1982; Vasquez 2000).